Monday, August 27, 2012

Cross Stitch Nails

I wasn't sure what to call these nails, and am still not really sure. I began making them without really knowing how they were going to turn out... the only idea that I had ahead of time was the naked nail part near the cuticle of my pinky, ring finger, and thumb. I don't even know what to call that! It reminds me of a knight's visor -- with the vents cut in around the mouth part.

In the end, I decided to call this a cross stitch manicure, because of the use of the X's, and because of the lack of any other name to call it.

I started out by placing striping tape on my nails in the "knight's visor" pattern. This involved one strip across and three strips perpendicular to that. Then, I painted over the striping tape with OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons, a warm nude. When I removed the striping tape, the nude nail bits remained.

Then, I painted on my accent nails. The green is China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise, and though I can't 100% remember what I used for the pink, I know it was one of the pink China Glaze neons. Using the same colors, I painted on rows of cross stitches (or rows of x's) along the tips of my other nails, and using Pretzel again, I mimicked the "knight's visor" on the tips of my accent nails.

I think this manicure turned out pretty interesting, especially for me not having a plan at all going into it.

What do you guys think I should have called this? For a bit I was calling them quilted nails, but that wasn't quite right, and tribal doesn't quite apply either.

The visor part reminds me of an embroidery stitch known as the blanket stitch that is used as a decorative edge binder for wool blankets. Between the cross & blanket stitches, your mani looks like a mini embroidery sampler. Great job!

I think cross stitch fits well! Also I didn't even realize at first that the nudey parts were your nail, I thought it was a different polish haha. Lately I've been loving doing manis without a plan! It's really fun to see what's swimming around in the ol' noggin while you aren't looking. Also, love this color combo (obviously I am a big fangirl of neon + nude).

This is gorgeous! I like calling it cross stitch. You've actually inspired me, my grandma used to do cross stitch and I have one that she made for me. I think I might try to copy the stitches onto my nails now. :]